The Best All-Weather Tires You Can Buy In 2026, According To Car And Driver

Pirelli was (and still is) defined by tires built for high-performance speed and Italian luxury. The company has been wrapping rubber around iconic vehicles since the 1950s, but in 2022, it did something it'd never done before. Pirelli decided to enter the all-weather tire game with its Cinturato WeatherActive line. These tires carry what's known as a three-peak mountain snowflake rating, meaning they're tested and certified for real snow performance — though they still hold up just fine in summer heat. That distinction matters more than you'd think.

Car and Driver recently put five all-weather tire options through a full battery of tests, and the Pirelli came out on top with 255 total points. The way they went about scoring is worth understanding; the main conditions they tested on were dry, wet, and snow. Dry testing included things like slalom speed, which, in essence, measures how quickly a car can weave between cones. 

That was alongside autocross lap times and braking distance from 60 mph to a complete stop. Wet testing used those same categories, but on soaked pavement, naturally. Snow testing added acceleration runs to 30 mph and a dedicated snowcross course on top of that. Each tire also received a subjective "feel" score out of 10 for every condition, capturing how confident it felt to the driver.

The Pirelli earned a perfect 10 for feel in both dry and wet conditions. It posted the fastest dry slalom at 31.1 mph and the quickest autocross at 30.4 seconds. That said, its snow skidpad grip was actually the lowest of the group at 0.26 g, so there's that. Car and Driver still gave it the crown because, according to the publication, "an all-weather tire — skewed for better performance in the wet and the snow — shouldn't make the driver suffer during the most common driving conditions."

The Pirelli actually beat four other tire models to take the crown. Coming in second was the Michelin CrossClimate2 with 251 points. It actually swept every wet-condition test — arguably making it one of the best tires for driving in the rain – recording the shortest wet braking at 148.5 feet. The Bridgestone WeatherPeak finished third at 244 points but was really the best performer in snow among the group, posting the fastest snow acceleration at 7.5 seconds. Goodyear's Assurance WeatherReady came fourth at 242 points, and rounding things out was the Nokian Remedy WRG5 at 222 points.

Car and Driver also threw in a dedicated summer tire as a benchmark, just to show how all-weather options stack up against specialized rubber. In wet braking, the Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 – one of the most durable summer tires out there – only added about 20 feet to its stopping distance compared to dry pavement. That's lower than the Pirelli's 27 feet added in that same dry-to-wet gap. It's not a huge difference, but it shows dedicated tires still have an edge under conditions they're built for.

The above comparisons are pretty telling, but we've also decided to pull in some figures from another tire tester, just as a second opinion. Tire Rack has also reviewed the Cinturato WeatherActive separately, and interestingly enough, their findings didn't perfectly align with what Car and Driver had to say about dry performance. They noted that once you pushed this tire past its limits on dry pavement, it developed understeer and could pivot sideways unpredictably. Meanwhile, Car and Driver gave those same dry conditions a perfect subjective score, so that's a fairly notable disagreement. Where both outlets did agree, though, was on ice and wet performance.